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The American Enlightenment was influenced by the 17th- and 18th-century Age of Enlightenment in Europe and distinctive American philosophy. According to James MacGregor Burns , the spirit of the American Enlightenment was to give Enlightenment ideals a practical, useful form in the life of the nation and its people.
The American Enlightenment was a critical precursor of the American Revolution. Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of natural law, natural rights, consent of the governed, individualism, property rights, self-ownership, self-determination, liberalism, republicanism, and defense against corruption.
Historians categorize the time of the American Revolution as part of a broader American Enlightenment, in which the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment began to influence American science and philosophy. [100] [104] This included a shift away from religious groundings in philosophy.
[2] [3] He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he helped to inspire the colonial era patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. [4] His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of human rights. [5]
By the late Enlightenment, there was a rising demand for a more universal approach to education, particularly after the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The predominant educational psychology from the 1750s onward, especially in northern European countries, was associationism : the notion that the mind associates or dissociates ...
The United States sat in a unique position in relation to the emergence of 19th century Radicalism due to its founding as a democratic republic in the American Revolution. Many of the reforms radicals advocated for in other countries had already been enacted in the United States, particularly under the administration of Andrew Jackson. [1]
A generation later their arguments immensely influenced the ideals of the American Revolution. According to Peter Karsten's Patriot-Heroes in England and America, Cato's Letters were the most common holdings on the bookcases of the founding fathers. [3] These letters also provided inspiration and ideals for the American Revolutionary generation.
Influenced by the new ideas of the Enlightenment, the American Revolution (1765–1783) is usually considered the starting point of the Age of Revolution. It in turn inspired the French Revolution of 1789, [ citation needed ] which rapidly spread to the rest of Europe through its wars.